An image recording apparatus is known that photoelectrically reads images photographed on photographic film by an image reading apparatus and records the images on a photosensitive material (photographic paper) by exposing it to recording light that is projected according to the read image data. In such an image recording apparatus, a roll of photosensitive material is contained in a magazine which is loaded in a magazine room, so along web of photosensitive material is fed out from the magazine into the apparatus main body. The long web of photosensitive material is cut by a cutter, which is provided in the apparatus main body, into a given length and becomes a photo print through a series of processing including exposure, developing and drying.
When the photosensitive material contained in the magazine is finished up in the image recording apparatus, the magazine is removed and refilled with another new roll of photosensitive material. In changing the photosensitive materials, a leading edge of the new photosensitive material is not always cut rightly but often cut irregularly or aslope. If the leading end of the new photosensitive material is protruded from the magazine, the protruding length can be stained with dust or can be exposed and thus fogged. In addition, fingerprint might remain on the leading end of the photosensitive material because workers can mistakenly touch the photosensitive material with their bare hands during replacement of it. For this reason, so as not to use such a leading end of any new photosensitive material, an edge treatment to cut away the leading end is carried out every time the magazine refilled with the new photosensitive material is loaded in the magazine room.
In the image recording apparatus, it often happens that a magazine with an in-use photosensitive material is removed from the magazine room and another magazine containing a different size photosensitive material is newly loaded in order to use photosensitive materials of various sizes. In this case, it is often uncertain whether the photosensitive material in the above-mentioned other magazine is an in-use one having already had the edge treatment or an unused one having had no edge treatment yet. For this reason, in order to deal with both the in-use photosensitive material and the unused one, the edge treatment is carried out whenever a magazine is newly loaded in the magazine room, regardless of the condition of the photosensitive material contained in the newly loaded magazine. As a result, the edge treatment is done repeatedly on the in-use photosensitive material, so the photosensitive material is wastefully cut and disposed, so the waste of photosensitive material increases uneconomically.
Usually, a cutter for the edge treatment is disposed in the apparatus main body. In order to shorten a transport distance of the photosensitive material from a paper outlet of the loaded magazine to the cutter, it is preferable for the cutter to be arranged as near the paper outlet as possible. For this reason, it is known in the art that a conveyer roller for conveying the photosensitive material from a magazine to the apparatus main body is arranged not in the apparatus main body but in the magazine itself. The magazine with the conveyer roller is provided with a pulley that gets connected to a drive source, which is disposed in the apparatus main body, when the magazine is loaded in the apparatus main body. The conveyer roller is rotated by rotating the pulley by the drive source. The pulley in the magazine can accidentally rotate while the magazine is being removed from the magazine room of the apparatus main body, causing the leading end of the contained photosensitive material to protrude from the magazine. In that case, the leading end of the photosensitive material gets dusted or fogged.
An image recording apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. H07-114109 has a detector to detect a leading edge of a photosensitive material, the detector being arranged before a cutter in a feed out direction of the photosensitive material. The movement of the cutter is controlled based on how long the photosensitive material is transported till the detector detects the leading edge of the photosensitive material.
An image recording apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2001-142154 is provided with a memory to store information on whether a photosensitive material contained in a magazine goes through the edge treatment or not. With reference to the information stored in the memory, the image recording apparatus performs the edge treatment only when the photosensitive material does not go through the edge treatment yet. An image recording apparatus shown in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2003-295330 refers to an open/close history of a magazine lid that is opened and closed each time a new roll of photosensitive material is set in a magazine, and performs the edge treatment if it judges based on the open/close history that the edge treatment hasn't been done on the contained photosensitive material yet.
The image recording apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. H07-114109, however, carries out the edge treatment every time the magazine is loaded, which cannot avoid the increase of waste photosensitive materials in total.
The image recording apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2001-142154 doesn't carry out the edge treatment for an in-use photosensitive material which has already had the edge treatment. The image recording apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2003-295330 performs the edge treatment for an in-use photosensitive material only when its leading end get fogged because the magazine containing the photosensitive material is removed for a long time from the magazine room or when the leading end has tendency to curl. Accordingly, the image recording apparatus of the last prior art cannot satisfy such needs for the edge treatment that are resulted for example from a deviation of a leading edge of a photosensitive material contained in the magazine with the pulley and the conveyer roller. As described above, the leading end can be stained or fogged when it deviates or protrudes by mistake with accidental rotation of the pulley while the magazine is removed from the magazine room. Conventionally, if the operator notices that the photosensitive material is protruded from the magazine, the operator should carry out the edge treatment on the protruded leading end of the photosensitive material. The operation, however, increases the burden on the operator. On the contrary, in a case where it is invisible that a leading end of a photosensitive material is protruded from a magazine, the image recording apparatus moves on to the following processes without any edge treatment even though the leading end suffers dust or fog.